A look at Canada’s GDP for the month of February reveals that the finance and insurance sector has played a significant role in pushing the nation’s total gains.
The country’s GDP remain unchanged in February following three months of growth — gains in service-producing industries were notably offset by declines in the goods-producing industries.
For February, service-producing industries were up 0.2%, down from 0.5% in January (the highest monthly growth rate since January 2013). On the other hand, the goods-producing industries were down 0.3% in February — a first for the group since October last year.
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The finance and insurance sector maintained its trend of gains for the fourth month in a row, climbing 0.7% in February. In terms of specific lines of business, depository credit intermediation and monetary authorities were up 0.5%. Financial investment services, funds, and other financial vehicles increased 1.4% due to higher mutual-fund activity tied to the March 1 deadline for Registered Retirement Savings Plan contributions for the 2016 tax year.
Insurance carriers and related activities climbed 0.7%.
According to
MarketPulse, increases in the finance and insurance sector — along with the real estate rental and leasing sector — helped contribute to a 2.8% increase in the output of legal services, itself the main contributor to the 0.5% increase in professional, scientific and technical services.
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